The planet is located in the habitable zone of its host star, which is a narrow circumstellar region where temperatures are neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to exist on the planet's surface.

"It's the holy grail of exoplanet research to find a planet around a star orbiting at the right distance so it's not too close where it would lose all its water and boil away, and not too far where it would all freeze," Steven Vogt, an astronomer at the University of California at Santa Cruz, told Space.com. "It's right smack in the habitable zone — there's no question or discussion about it. It's not on the edge, it's right in there."

The researchers estimate that the planet, called GJ 667Cc, is at least 4.5 times as massive as Earth, which makes it a so-called super-Earth. It takes roughly 28 days to make one orbital lap around its parent star, which is located a mere 22 light-years away from Earth, in the constellation Scorpius (the Scorpion).

Thats excellent!! Only 22 light Years away!!! That means if we can get a good Image of this planet, we wont be seing an image that happend stupid long ago.

Might be possible to see the water on this planet, very exciting

Question is, using todays technology, what is the realistic amount of time spent to travel to this planet =/

even using conventional boosters and then ion propulsion, would still take much longer than we would like....

anyone able to make a Guesstimate?Edited by StormX2 - 2/2/12 at 11:20am

The researchers estimate that the planet, called GJ 667Cc, is at least 4.5 times as massive as Earth, which makes it a so-called super-Earth. It takes roughly 28 days to make one orbital lap around its parent star, which is located a mere 22 light-years away from Earth, in the constellation Scorpius (the Scorpion).

Thats excellent!! Only 22 light Years away!!! That means if we can get a good Image of this planet, we wont be seing an image that happend stupid long ago.
Might be possible to see the water on this planet, very excitingQuestion is, using todays technology, what is the realistic amount of time spent to travel to this planet =/
even using conventional boosters and then ion propulsion, would still take much longer than we would like....
anyone able to make a Guesstimate?

The current rocket propulsion is 1/10,000 of the speed of light hence multiply 22x10,000= 220,000 years That means if we send a ship now we would get there in 220,000 years!

New technologies are emerging that could propel remote vehicles (like the Voyagers) far faster than what V1 is traveling at today. For reference, V1 is traveling (right now) at roughly 38,000 MPH (61,000 KPH). That speed has been built up over time though and I can't give you any math on that part.

22 light years is almost 6 times as far as the Centauri system, the nearest known star to Earth. Considering it would take over a hundred thousand years to get to Centauri now, you're looking at 500 million years to get to this planet (as of technology now).

Might be possible to see the water on this planet, very exciting
Question is, using todays technology, what is the realistic amount of time spent to travel to this planet =/
even using conventional boosters and then ion propulsion, would still take much longer than we would like....
anyone able to make a Guesstimate?

The Apollo rockets reached a max speed of ~24,000mph, but that was just to escape Earth's gravitational pull. It's not exactly a sustainable speed. The Apollo slowed down to around ~2,200mph as the Earth's gravity continued to pull on it. As it entered the Moon's gravitational field it started to slightly speed up again.

Theoretically, if we could maintain a speed of 24,000mph, it would still take ~615,000 years to travel 22 light years.Edited by Evermind - 2/2/12 at 11:41am

Now, we have a destination. Some where to go. Let's start focusing on developing the means to get there in less than 2 million years.

Though if there was an advance form of life as we know it there I think our civilizations would have been able to detect each other's EM transmissions for many years. Unless they don't use radio of any kind. Oh what I would do to be alive when we would be able to get a probe there. Though I am assuming it will happen, we might be bound to this planet for the life of our species as well.Edited by Vagrant Storm - 2/2/12 at 11:41am